


Outsiders Looking In

by vasamalulu



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Melodrama to the nth degree, SM as a ballet company, and Fame like school, and fanclubs, in this universe contemporary ballet dancers have groupies, lol who am i kidding, soap opera territory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2019-12-30 08:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18312356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasamalulu/pseuds/vasamalulu
Summary: An experiment in writing non-fan accounts and outsider experiences. (LoL)





	1. Kija-nim, Senior Reporter

**Author's Note:**

> (1 Reporter): She came to write a feature on BoA's unexpected comeback, she got an eyeful of something else.

Nobody expected BoA to make a comeback, especially after her much publicized 'hang up my dancing shoes' and 'take up my executive board fitted suit jacket' ceremony that SM Ballet Theater lavishly threw for her, the first senior principal dancer in the history of the company.

Technically Kangta was the company's first principal dancer, but for some reason, the guy just transitioned quietly into his executive job. Nobody even realized he had stopped performing until he missed three seasons straight, which seemed to suit the man just fine for some inexplicable reason.

Every respectable dance publication--and not a few mainstream entertainment publication, to boot--wasted no time to scramble to get exclusives, because BoA was big like that.

Thus, to get the chance to not only interview BoA, but be given the green light by all related parties to write a "48 hours with BoA" feature for the next edition was nothing short of miracle, even for seasoned writers.

She was a seasoned pro, of course she was. Her editor wouldn't send her out to cover such an important thing if she weren't. Her rookie article, all 100 words of it, was published long before BoA's debut stage, for example. There were noises of course, because newsroom competition was cutthroat on a slow day, and positively sharks in bloody water when it came to scoops.

A lot of the other senior writers complained, because as stellar as her name was, she hadn't been in the country for long. She had spent most of her career covering Russia, Northern Europe then Latin America, only just returning to the land of her birth because... of all things... she found love.

It seemed that she had also developed a new tic. She had taken to twisting her wedding band whenever she's nervous now. She had never worn jewelry on her fingers before, and now she'd picked up a new trick. Maybe she's not an old dog after all.

The elevator dinged. She stepped inside along with the crowd.

* * *

"My god, when will it end," Heechul, senior dancer, complained loudly in the elevator to a captive audience of sundry dancers and staff. They all nodded and commisserated. The press had for some reason set up camp outside the building, neck and neck, shoulder to shoulder with BoA's fans, fans of other dancers, and paparazzi. The gauntlet was brutal because everyone were so thirsty for BoA tidbits that anyone remotely related to the company got a mic or two shoved into their faces.

She herself barely got out of the scrum once the stern security guard cleared her identity through a walkie-talkie. She got a few glares from her fellow journalists, and would've been trampled by a crowd of surging mass if not for a passing dancer who all but scooped her up and half-carried half-dragged her to the door.

Or at least she thought the person was a dancer. Maybe he was a dancer's bodyguard, from the way he said "excuse me" and stunned the crowd into parting for him like the Red Sea. He had disappeared before she could see or thank him properly.

Meanwhile, fast forward to now, she discovered that perhaps Heechul was unluckier than her. The poor man was sporting a small red mark on his cheek where it was knocked by a stray lens. "My beautiful face..." he exaggeratedly commiserated with his own reflection on the elevator's mirrored wall.

He caught her looking at him from the glass. His gaze immediately turned colder by a good few degrees as he zeroed in on her, past all the other dozen heads, who had all now turned toward her, pinning her figuratively to the elevator's back wall. "Who are you? You're not staff nor danc..."

She quickly introduced herself, showed him her press pass and invitation letter from BoA's manager before he even finished his sentence.

Either Heechul could read very fast, or something else, but it took less than a second for the dancer to look up from the paper saying, "Ah, you are Please-Don't-Call-Me-By-My-Name _Kija_ -nim!" His cold glare thawed immediately like a mirage.

It took her awhile to sort out all the information in her head to come to a plausible conclusion. "Yes, I covered your group's Argentinian leg." It had been twenty dates at Teatro Colon. But she knew for certain that Heechul had missed the group interview with her because of a trip to hospital, and that they had never met. Yet here he was... knowing who she was and her professional hang-up? "How do you..."

"Kija-nim is famous around here," he told her the short of it, and all the heads around them nodded in unison again. "aaahh.. this is kija-nim~" they tittered amongst themselves. "Reporter-nim~! La _periodista-nim~!"_ popping up every so often. She imagined them casting glances, throwing chins, pointing at her like she's some funny urban legend or the butt of an internal joke.

They couldn't shake hands because of the amount of bodies separating them, and when the elevator door opened, Heechul veered left when she had to veer right. BoA's PA was already waiting at the wings.

* * *

"It's a bit busy today, we're doing predebut auditions," was the short explanation as she was given the short two-cent tour around the practice floor, wading through a different kind of sea of human bodies--trainees, seemingly hundreds of them. New trainees, old trainees, and those who had been grinding since forever. In each pair of eyes she saw equal parts hope and hunger. This time, next year, less than half of them would debut officially before being apprenticed off to different groups. The tension was unbearable.

"Your 48 hours will start from the time you meet BoA-nim."

She remembered that much, it was in the contract. Someone gave her a stopwatch as a gag gift.

"Where's your overnight bag?" the PA eyed her from top to bottom and noted how small her handbag was.

"Overnight bag?" she asked curiously.

"You're not going to spend the night at BoA's?"

She didn't remember this being in the contract. Was it in the contract? She had thought that she was only going to cover on-the-clock time. Not spend the night playing sleepover with the woman.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, kija-nim," the PA said.

"It's in my car, actually," she bluffed smoothly. She was never a girl scout, but she was always prepared.

"Oh, that's fine. Oh, you're parked outside? Do you want one of our staff to move your car to the underground garage? Unless you want to brave the throng again later."

The two of them shuddered as they remembered the mass waiting downstairs.

"Yes please."

"Give us your carkeys later," the PA said pushing a door open at the end of the long corridor. "Quiet please. Audition in progress." was printed sternly in deep black on stark white paper.

The door closed, cutting off the corridor's buzz. The silence was deafening.

* * *

Cue music, and the next auditionee began.

Meanwhile, she was put to stand together with the general staff and sundry managers along one wall. From her vantage point, she could see BoA's side profile clearly.

BoA was small. Actually smaller than her soaring leaps and otherworldly extensions on the stage would let you believe. Actually smaller than almost anyone else in the room, but with a charisma that overpowered the small space.

All the group leaders seemed to be there, along with some senior dancers, all sitting to her left or right or behind her, although two chairs immediately to her right were empty. She recognized the man to BoA's left as Leeteuk, the principal who led the group that she had covered in Argentina, and Heechul was seated behind him. He noticed her staring, grinned at her, then nudged his colleague, who nodded at her general direction but otherwise kept his eyes on the audition.

BoA also nodded at her, the head tilt was ever so slight that it took a while for her to realize that her 48 hours had started.

* * *

The auditionee--a lanky girl who couldn't be more than 15--left the room quietly, as the staff by the door dutifully closed it behind her, ticked off a name, and waited for the cue to call the next one. Everyone talked among themselves, wrote notes (or maybe doodled), decided whatever they needed to decide, while managers scrolled down miles of messages. Or maybe they were just playing games or making SNS shitposts.

Suddenly the door opened without a name being called. The door staff--short on both patience and caffeine--looked up in annoyance. "Please wait until your name is c... ah shit. Sorry."

"'S fine, don't worry about it."

Like a scene out of a slapstick comedy, all heads turned as one toward the door.

" _Yah!_ " BoA was, of course, the first to find her tongue. "And I mean this in the nicest possible way, because I like you, but what the _fuck_ are you doing here?"

"Uh, hi?"

Two men--tall and taller--stepped inside the room. Tall had a slight limp and a bright blue cast around one wrist. He looked sheepish for being told off by BoA. Taller, in a baseball cap and sunglasses, trailed half a step behind, looking long-suffering and resigned to one's fate.

"Sorry, he escaped," Taller called out apologetically. Everyone fell over themselves making cooing noises in an effort to soothe him. He had his head down trying to balance a tray of coffee cups and a bag that smelled like it had pastries in them. He crossed the distance between the door and the table effortlessly, all long limbs and grace. The bag was small but it seemed bottomless as doughnuts and bright spring-fruit tarts came out one after the other, endlessly. "Peace offering?"

"It's not you I'm angry at, Changmin-ah," BoA told Taller, patting his hand. "Sit, sit. _Otsukare_ , you worked hard," she said, because it had only been half a day since the two men returned from Japan. "That guy on the other hand," she said, while glaring to the other one who was trying to look harmless, chatting up the staff.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this SM is a mix of traditional ballet companies & SM in real life. But it's AU I guess, so... er? Anyway.  
> My brush with the dancing world and the ballet world is limited to watching reruns of Fame on pirated DVDs, reading biography books of famous dancers, and sending my kid niece to toddler ballet. Any thoughts, hints, help, etc etc are hella welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why are you here and not resting at home?" BoA asked with an arched eyebrow. "Injured people are not welcome here."

"My eyes are not injured, though?" was the cheeky answer to a blatant misreading of BoA's rhetorical question.

"Yunho- _yah_!" BoA sputtered, and even she did not say it, everyone could hear her 'honestly, this boy' loud and clear.

There's an old adage that you couldn't be a proper dancer without getting an injury or two, losing a toenail or three, twisting an ankle or both. Indeed, injuries large and small happened up and down and sideways across the entire length of the company, so much so that it might be good business sense to just fund their own little hospital (okay, maybe a clinic. A small one. With one doctor and one nurse).

And yet, despite everyone's best efforts, Yunho was still reigning king of bad insurance scores. He was also on a good first-name-basis rapport with the hospital staff, and even some long-term patients there. It wasn't even his fault most of the time. ("Were you like an evil warlord in your previous life or something and this is karma catching up on you?" a harried crew member had asked sometime a few seasons ago, as they were busy fishing him and his thankfully-not-broken foot out of a hole that suddenly appeared on stage during dress rehearsal. "One person can't have all this much bad luck.")

"Oh, look, Changmin, this must be our seats they've been saving," Yunho breezed across the room as smoothly as one could with a limp. He all but slumped into the empty seat directly to BoA's right, and Changmin slipped to the seat next to him.

Even those who had worked in the company long enough still marveled at how the two got into their seats like mirror images of each other.

"So comfy," Yunho made a show of doubling down into his chair. "You must really want us here," he told BoA before turning his head to smile triumphantly at Changmin, who shook his head indulgently.

BoA was not impressed. She gave him a we'll- _definitely_ -have-words-later sort of glare before calling for the next auditionee to be called in.

* * *

Several groups of auditionees--in different configuration of ones, twos, threes, fours, or more--came and went in quick succession before they paused to confer. Uninterested parties wandered off to the buffet table at the other end of the room, now even better with the newest pastry offerings that Changmin (and later, someone who appeared to be his PA) had brought in.

"Kija-nim," someone whispered to her and plopped a small dessert plate on her lap. A small frosted pastry sat primly in the middle. "It's really good. From BoA-nim's favorite bakery in Tokyo."

She looked up and saw BoA's PA holding two steaming teacups on dainty saucers, one of which she gladly received. She didn't even realize the room was cold until the cup's warmth spread from her fingertips down to her toes.

There's a low buzz in the air of people chatting punctuated by porcelain, glass, and silverware. It was something she didn't expect to be quite surprised about but did. She didn't even know why she expected it to be paper cups and greasy napkins doubling as plates.

"Unexpectedly, it's quite high class," was her comment, which she didn't mean to say out loud, and the PA merely laughed.

"It's not so much high class as it is eco," the PA said with a voice implying that air-quotes should be put around the word 'eco'. PA-nim nodded toward the group of people talking next to one window, smiling mirthfully, hinting at something else deeper beyond reusing cups and using natural detergents.

She recognized Choi Siwon, another member of the group that went to Argentina, speaking to two women. She vaguely remembered him to be the same Siwon who talked about art and the caring for the earth during a lull in the interview back then. She remembered trying really hard to do justice to Siwon-ssi's environmental concerns in the article she wrote about them post-interview. It had been harder to write than she had expected, but she was then rather pleased at how it turned out. It won her a minor prize, too, because Siwon's input made her article stand out enough in a sea of dance articles. She wondered if he had read it.

Someone's phone alarm went off, strains of Rossini's William Tell Overture signaled the end of their short break, sending everyone galloping to their seats in high spirits. Her eyes followed Siwon who stopped to greet almost everyone in the room before sitting down next to Heechul behind their principal. Meanwhile, Siwon's two conversation partners retook the two front seats next to Changmin. One of them leaned far back in her chair so she could pass a fruit cup to Yunho behind Changmin's back.

It wasn't the first time she thought to herself that the two women looked too young to be principals. Then again, perhaps that's just her ageism or gender bias showing. And she had yet to learn their names well enough to run through her search engine.

"Ah... Taeyeon-ssi and Song Qian-ssi. They sure do look younger than their experience," PA-nim whispered to her, because apparently BoA's PA read minds.

* * *

Auditionees came and went; some were fortunate to get talked about immediately. A handful few were fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate (?), to get called back in to do this or that. While BoA had first pick in light of her very important comeback ("How many comebacks do you need?" because Heechul had the self-preservation sense of a honey badger), most of the principals were already picking favorites.

"Stop poaching my picks," she heard Song Qian grumble at Changmin, only barely remembering to use the proper honorifics. She seemed genuinely ticked off. "Why do you need so many girls in your crew all of a sudden?"

It was a little funny to see how Changmin was suddenly worried if they were running out of strawberries, booking it to the buffet table at record speeds, where he almost (almost!) had to snatch a strawberry out of Yunho's mouth.

Lunch break was non-existent, with no breaks longer than a teacup's worth of stretching exercises using the back of chairs or other people's shoulders like barres to stave of creaking bones. It still seemed to her that they were grazing on an endless supplies of finger foods, sandwiches, savory pastries, and sweet desserts, tea and lemon water, and that the dancers ate very well and heartily indeed.

She had never eaten so well, she thought. Not on a reporter's salary, anyway, no matter how many awards she got on her shelf at home. Observing people while being properly nourished was a luxury she never thought she'd have. Her fellow journalists at the news-desk would be so green with envy once they found out--or, read about it once her article got published.

* * *

Time moved even quicker than she expected. Late winter sun was already low in the sky, casting long shadows and white light that sent one of the dancers sitting close to the back to draw all the curtains close. The sudden burst of overhead lights being switched on full power startled her.

The next auditionee stepped inside not just laden with his own stuff but also with a box someone had entrusted to him to take in. It was like a cake box, only fancier, with a foreign name written in curlicued silver, overlaid on the most elegant pastel shades she had ever seen. The cake box went onto the buffet table while the card accompanying it found its way to BoA's side of the table.

Both Yunho and Leeteuk who sat either side of her caught a glimpse of the card's contents and chuckled to themselves. Yunho shared a conspiratorial look with Changmin who chuckled so hard it earned him a pencil stab from BoA herself.

Changmin might or might not have made a comment about arms-that-are-surprisingly-longer-than-they-looked in retaliation, but his stage whisper was nevertheless drowned out by the first strains of Sylvia's Aminta Variation, the first of three variations the auditionee would dance that day.

* * *

She liked people watching, observing people from any distance near and far, which was part of the reason why she easily decided to become a reporter as soon as she received news she could no longer dance.

She watched the different ways people took down notes about the audition. Some took copious notes, some sparingly, and a few only wrote once the auditionees finished dancing. The principals at the the table wrote the least, notebooks mostly empty, pens barely out of their caps, mind like steel traps sussing out one auditionee from the next even when twelve went at once. Video recordings and meticulous notes from their group members helped fill in the blanks later.

"Last one," she heard BoA call to the roster-keeper at the door, when the clock on the wall told everyone it was six o'clock.

The keeper nodded, went out, and spent a longer time outside before appearing with a group of six.

"Finished?" she asked PA-nim who had taken to stick next to her like they were glued together.

"Just the auditions. For today." The PA was already on her feet and had to be stopped from serving another cup of tea. "Tired, Kija-nim?"

"No, it's interesting," and that's the truth of it. Like the adjudicators in the room, she already had her favorites picked out from the short time she'd seen them dance. She'd have to ask if she could interview some of the trainees at a later date.

"Good," PA-nim said with a nod that sent her straight-cut brow-length bangs flopping violently. "Because we still have a long way to go before we can all go home."

It might just be the fluorescent lights, but PA-nim's smile was positively shark-like. "Short dinner, then programming meeting."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if this chapter appears a bit boring?  
> Let me know what you want to see. I do hope that the pace picks up soon. 
> 
> Meanwhile, please enjoy Roberto Bolle dancing the [Sylvia's Aminta Variation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM8fjfFXsJM)


	3. Chapter 3

She could hear the hustle of bodies and a wall of murmurs accompanying a mass of people clearing out of the hallway, and she was sure everyone else could too. It was almost as if the whole room was holding their breath, as though they were all waiting for something.

Everyone seemed to be looking at the direction of the door, as though they could see through it. She wondered why, but joined the pack anyway.

Then all of a sudden silence came in like a low constant ring, ushered in by one last 'oomph, hey wait for me,' floating in through the walls that separated the room from the outside.

"That's the last of 'em," one of the PAs next to her said, at the count of maybe five and a half.

"Means we can go out now? I'm famished," one of the younger, cheekier dancers called out, then turned red and sheepish after most of his seniors turned to look at him. His stomach growled and he raised his hands up in a "See I didn't lie" way.

She didn't mean to laugh at a scene among friends that weren't hers. But she laughed anyway, and she cursed how loud it sounded.

"Oh," Yunho suddenly said. "It's you."

"Yeah! Oh oh, Yurrobong! She's the reporter we told you about! From our Latin American tour," Donghae supplied excitedly. It made her wonder what sort of wild stories they had been telling everyone back at SM. It wasn't her fault that her name and her profession matched. And she didn't think it was amusing to begin with. She tried to remember what exactly she did or said to make her suddenly famous in these halls. Maybe she'd ask BoA later. 

"That too, but that's not what I meant. We met downstairs," Yunho twisted around on his seat so he could face her, stretch out his good arm and offer a handshake. "So, you made it in alright, then? There were a lot of fans this afternoon."

It took a while for her to process the statement, until she recognized the pattern of fabric covering Yunho's outstretched arm. The same fabric covering the arm that had wrapped loosely around her and ferried her across the sea of people.

"Ah! You're the one who carried me in!"

From the corner of her eye, she could see Changmin _—_ who had been engaged in a discussion with Song Qian _—_ whip around so quickly, that surely he'd break a neck. "Carry, you said? What... _Hyung_!"

 _"What?"_ Yunho looked affronted at the accusation. "I didn't _literally_ carry her. I'm sure it's just a figure of speech, right Kija-nim? We walked. Fast. In between BoA fans. So maybe held her. Barely. My good arm. Right?" He looked at her like she's the one who could help him dig out of the mess. 

"Well..." did she really just imagined her feet not touching the ground as he helped her push past the fan-crowd downstairs.

"We can check," Heechul said gleefully, with some other dancers adding into the mix. 

"Don't you _all_ start checking SNS!" Yunho squirmed in his seat, both trying to grab cellphones and protect his cast-wrapped wrist from being jostled around.

* * *

"Okay kids," BoA called, despite a good number of people in the room being older in biological year than her. "That's enough, time for dinner." She stood up from her seat, stretched then, made a half turn on her feet, and how everyone rose along with her, like she was a queen in her own kingdom made up of wood, gleaming glass, and barres. Then she wondered what she would write in her article and how to describe the warm sunny camaraderie that bounced off the mirrors and walls.

She was still sorting out her books and pencils into her bag when BoA moved to the door and everyone moved with her. Except two, who stayed seated surrounded by empty chairs and tables standing at odd angles from being pushed too enthusiastically away.

"Yundolah, you're not coming with us?"

"No, I'm good. Unless Changmin wants to go..." but the younger of the two men shook his head quickly. "I think I'm going to review my notes for a bit."

"What notes?" Leeteuk asked from his spot by the door. "Those are twelve pages of doodles you're holding."

"Thirteen, actually," Yunho said instead, smiling sheepishly and waving the sheaf of paper in his hands.

"Give me the rhino one, I want to frame it," Heechul yelled from where he was outside in the corridors, where he had been speaking to one of the PAs. The others laughed heartily, before filing out dutifully when BoA shooed them.

"I'll buy you that thing you liked," she said. "Kija-nim, come, come. We're going to my favorite restaurant."

* * *

The hallway was half deserted now that most of the trainees have gone their way, most probably to the practice rooms.

Someone told her that more than half of the remaining trainees had decided to stay in the studios, to cram in some last minute work before tomorrow's second round of auditions. It was tradition. Even BoA did it back in the day, and she was never a trainee in today's sense of the word.

It made her nostalgic of her university days, being one of the hundreds of journalism students cramming up next to equally beleaguered students from other departments in a library before an exam. Libraries... dance studios... they weren't so different after all.

"He didn't even stand up. His leg is worse than we thought, then?" she heard someone comment from up the column of people heading toward the exit.

"I think it seized up near the end of the auditions," she heard BoA replying to everyone nodding. They've all been injured before, and they all knew how to read the signs. Which was probably why the auditions were cut short, meeting or no meeting, dinner or no dinner. She knew they could've crammed another three groups of ten easily.

"I half-thought Changmin was going to have to stab you again to get your attention, BoA-sunbaenim," Taeyeon called from somewhere to the left of her, being slapped in the back by her own group members who were laughing politely to the side.

"Glad all of you found it funny," BoA grinned. "Someone needs to remind the brat that I've been taking care of Yunho longer than he had."

A door somewhere down the corridor and a small group of trainees exited the room hauling a few bags of toiletries between them.

The speed with which they jumped back inside the room, slamming the door close behind them, upon seeing the group of laughing senior dancers bearing down the corridor, was really something.

It was a split-second thing from start to finish, and she could barely see who the trainees were, even with her seasoned journalist eyes. She only knew they were two boys and two girls.

(There was a time, somewhere during college that they had to sit on a small concrete island in the middle of an intersection and write a 1,000 word article worth printing. To say that you learned to notice things in a blink of an eye, was often not an exaggeration).

"Was that the boy who auditioned last year and the year before?" BoA asked, looking at the closed door as they passed it.

"Yeah, the other boy auditioned the year before and skipped last year," one of the younger dancers spoke up. "And girls just joined last winter. I think Taeyeon-sunbaenim already liked what she saw in them."

"I like the look of the four of them," BoA spoke, almost to herself, but loud enough to signal that she might just be calling first dibs if things went well in auditions tomorrow.

There was a muted but excited squeal from somewhere behind the doors. The kids must've been eavesdropping.

The dancers smirked among themselves. "Now they won't sleep," Heechul assessed correctly that they'll be training doubly hard into the night to ensure they get picked, come hell or high water. "You're evil, BoA!"

* * *

BoA's favorite restaurant _—_ one of many, but her favorite in the area _—_ was not far at all. It was of moderate walking distance, even. But they passed the front gates and saw the throng of people still waiting. Some of them saw cars moving out and began waving banners animatedly. It was after sundown, and the fans' tired faces were illuminated eerily under the streetlights.

She craned her neck trying to see if her car was still intact among the crush of people.

"Kija-nim, don't forget to give us your keys later," the PA sitting next to her reminded.

"Are they going to stay here all night?"

"Not really. We still need to comply with the no crowds after curfew thing, which is a blessing, so we'll have to clear them out soon. But a few stragglers here and there will probably stay."

She wasn't yet born and/or old enough to properly appreciate the hysteria enveloping Ballet's rock-star generation to see Nureyev, Baryshnikov, or Mukhamedov being mobbed down by their fans and admirers waiting at the stage doors or on the steps the Opera House in London, Paris, and elsewhere. She wondered if the scenes were as electric as this one.

The view of the crowd disappeared as the car rounded a corner, another one, and then the restaurant came into view. There were already fans waiting out side.

"A lot of our favorite restaurants have private rooms," PA-nim said off-handedly, eyes staring into the distance, the opposite side of the street.

* * *

Ordering was fast. Everyone knew what they liked, while the maitre d' wondered why Yunho-ssi and Changmin-ssi didn't join them even though he read on SNS that the two men had arrived back in Seoul this morning.

Empty excuses were made, and more food were ordered to-go, and the maitre d' promised to throw in some more desserts because Yunho-ssi looked like he needed feeding.

Dinner was fast, with minimal amount of chatting, much less than she expected. BoA helpfully explained to her that they still had a lot of things to do back at the company, but that they enjoyed not having to eat dinner at the cafeteria once in a while. Someone from the other table snorted in disbelief.

"This will look good in your article, Kija-nim, makes her less of a hermit than she already is," Leeteuk looked at her conspiratorially, as he cleared off one last piece of fish from his plate.

"I'll have you know I never stay overnight at the company if I don't have to."

"This is also true," someone she remembered as a dancer with a utensil as a stage name said. "She has fixed schedules. She clocks out at nine. Gets home by ten. And..."

"...you know she practiced at home! Have you seen her home studio?"

"For some reason they're obsessed with this idea of me being a workaholic. It's so unfair because it gives me this reputation..."

"...oh come off it. No dancer willingly take practices with you or Yunho if they still want to live by sundown. You know it's bad when even Changmin complains now and again."

She watched them all laugh, and studied BoA's goodnatured frown. She wondered then whether this whole iron lady image was just something legends had built for BoA and not one she would prefer for herself. She had heard similar complaints too among her female journalist friends at the other desks--ones who had to work in more male-dominated industries. "Devil reporter", "tomboy reporter", and who knew what else. Then she wondered if she had ever fed that particular office watercooler banter.

The dancers all laughed and tittered among one another until the maitre d' came in with their take-out orders and the bill. All the male principal dancers, even the younger ones, fell over themselves trying to pay, but BoA merely waved them all away.

"Quit trying to look good for my article," BoA laughed as she put her signature on the slip and receipt.

"That's right. It's all about BoA anyway," she said in her best reporter-voice.

They marched out of the the private room together with the younger ones resembling packmules carrying all their take-aways. The sommelier stopped them on the way out and put two restaurant paperbags directly in BoA's hands.

"Compliments of the house. One for you, BoA-ssi, congratulations on your comeback," the sommelier explained. "The other is for Changmin-ssi. When we heard that Yunho-ssi was injured, we knew Changmin-ssi will definitely need some of those by the end of it."

They grinned at each other, and the sommelier offered one final greeting.

Heechul peered into one of the paper bags and whistled. "I don't know much about wine, but... wow?"

* * *

Back at the company's underground parking lot, she handed her car keys and told them the color of her overnight bag which they assured her would be put in BoA's car.

"You're going to have a sleepover?" someone asked when they pressed up tightly inside an elevator. Each of them were laden with different bags of food. Mostly for the staff who had to stay behind to prep for the coming meeting and whose job it was to chaperone the trainees around, and also for the other dancers who couldn't come with. 

"You better keep one ear open, because BoA will pretend to sleep and then resume practice once she thinks everyone's asleep."

This time BoA merely snorted, juggling Changmin's wine and Yunho's dessert box in her arms. She caught BoA's gaze through the mirrored door of the elevator. They shared a wink and a nod. Sometimes men just don't get it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Balletomanie generation was wild. Police on horses had to be called in because there were too many fans. Other times, they waited day and night to catch a glimpse of dancers at the stage door, and waxed poetic about seeing them on stage like they were the second coming. 
> 
> Excerpt from [Nureyev: The Life](https://books.google.co.id/books?id=E6Isra1O6QkC) (page xxxii)  
> "The mid-sixties saw the development of the groupie, a species of which five-thousand strong had keened and howled at JFK airport the previous year when the Beatles arrived to conquer the States. The summer of '65 belonged to the Rolling Stones, who needed police protection to escape the hundreds of screaming girls outside the theater. Meanwhile at the Met, mounted police were brought in to prevent Rudolf Nureyev from being mobbed-a phenomenon in itself, as never before had a dance audience demonstrated the kind of group hysteria usually reserved for rock stars."


	4. Dancer, C.P.A., C.F.A., C.A.I.A.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another character's point of view.

It took a while for her to track down Yunho-nim and Changmin-nim's Japan Affairs manager, but once she got to meet the man, more questions than answers loomed.

Yunho-nim had been injured during one of the Japan shows, she knew that much without ever needing to look at the person. His insurance claims papers--meticulously put together and too informative in a way that betrayed the number of times the manager had had to write up similar forms--that crossed her desk on its way to the claims department said as much.

But there was an additional set of forms that looked painfully medical and incongruous with the rest of the claims, written entirely in the kind of technical Japanese that her online OCR translator quickly gave up on. She only recognized the note clipped to the front of the report saying that it would be paid separate from company-provided insurance.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that wasn't supposed to be submitted," the manager quickly snatched the document out of her fingers.

"What is it?"

"Nothing connected to the claims at all."

"But, if it is something connected to the medical bills, we can afford it I'm sure. The claims department won't even say no."

"It's nothing for you to worry about, it's handled. Now I best be off. Thank you for this," the manager said, genuinely grateful. He bowed a little and she returned it a little deeper. He left to the direction of where all the principal dancers' managers had their little offices. Somewhere she could never follow anyway.

* * *

Before she was an accountant--and a damned good one at that--she was a dancer first. She realized earlier on was never going to be any good at it, and once she knew she was going to be stuck as a middling understudy of a permanent corps de ballet, she decided to just do what she's truly good at. Numbers.

It would be less glamorous, she'd go to less galas and drink fancy wines or sparkling champagne with the dancers of her dreams... but she could do all those things anyway. She and numbers were such good friends, she could afford her own fancy wines and all he champagne she wanted. And dancers, they came to her department often enough anyway, because everyone needed money at some point or another. 

Numbers were her friend when she had to move from home to home because the debt collectors were fast on her father's heels. Numbers were her friend when those same people learned that she had more value turning numbers around than actually collecting her father's meager debt. Numbers were her friend when the young mistress of the House she ended up working for actually loved to dance, loved having a friend to dance with, but absolutely hated competition.

Numbers were her friend when she gamed the system to get a scholarship into a presitigious university, gotten her degree and public accountant certificate. Numbers were still her friend when she sneaked her way into SM Ballet Theater's accounting department after an epiphany that happened one overcast winter.

But dance was also her friend. It helped her clear her anxieties like she could sweat all her worries away. Dance cleared her head as much as numbers would anchor her to the ground.

* * *

The lower practice rooms were full of trainees staying overnight not sleeping but training and practicing for another round of auditions rather than go home or back to their shared dorms.

She knew the ones on the upper floors would be empty, as all the senior and principle dancers were away for dinner. She had caught a glimpse of BoA's long entourage along with other dancers exiting out to the basement parking lot just as she got out of the basement ATM banks.

If she could just steal half an hour of stretching, a small twirl. The smell of sweat and wood hastened her pace. She knew a smaller older room that anyone barely used anymore.

* * *

"Are you okay now?"

Her hand hovered over the doorknob. It was clearly Changmin-nim's voice.

"Hey, Changmin..." Yunho-nim's Korean was still inflected by Japanese. It always took him much longer to shake off accents, while Changmin would switch back and forth languages as though he was one of those high end translator AIs. "Brings back memories right?"

It was a small practice room, old, as old as the building, or perhaps the building was built around this room. It was more of a prep room nowadays or as an emergency pantry for the bigger practice room next door. Or a place to store things until they were needed elsewhere.

"Oh look at this one. Donghae carved this. I... what's this word... hate Yunho so much I wish he'd just die." Yunho's voice was more playful than anything, no anger or sadness.

"It's not die. It's 'lie'. See, that's just the wood grain, not an alphabet loop."

"I thought it was 'die' for the longest time."

"Hyungie..." Changmin's words turned plaintive. "Hyung. _Please._ We never joke about that, okay? Never with that word. Not even a little."

"That was from when I was telling him he didn't have to try so hard because he's good enough already," either Yunho didn't hear him, or he was actively ignoring Changmin.

"He must've been shocked," Changmin spoke up after a beat, after deciding he would not bring up things like death, after deciding he would just humor hyung along. "You must've broke him somehow. For you to tell him to tone things down. You... king of turning things up by a few notches."

"He was good enough, though." There was a hum low and warm. "I could already see him pushing himself so hard. Push any harder I knew he'd break. It was the only thing I could do, tell him to take it easy."

"Everyone in that group was doubting themselves hard for a few years. When was it? Their first Korean debut or..."

"No, this one was from Donghae's solo guesting tour with Canada National? Or RBT? Something like that anyway. His first one. His solo guesting cherry."

"I forgot he is a high flier from the start. Damn, must be around the time we're killing ourselves in Ueno Park trying to get noticed."

"That was a good time for us though. Ueno Fountain Square was always good to us."

"Wish we could go back to those times again, it felt so simple back then. Tougher. But simpler."

She knew the kind of silence that accompanied fond memories. The whispers and small snatches of laughter between the two men, the small private reminisce that she had intruded upon but felt no need to abandon. It was nice, basking in a warmth of their shared experience. She was too invested in living vicariously through eavesdropping that even she could feel the shift in the air. 

Her blood turned glacial all of a sudden. There was a sigh and a distressed whine from inside the room. 

"We..." There was a pregnant silence that she could even feel outside, separated by thick battered wooden door. "I'd like that... We sho..."

"Don't say it, hyung." Changmin-nim's voice was urgent and biting, like wounded wildebeests fleeing. 

"We should go back there..."

"Hyung, stop. _Please."_

"We should ask if we could dance there again. Do a project. A project will be good... You know, before..."

"Oh _god._ Hyung, don't finish that sentence. Don't you _dare."_

"Before I can't dance anymore."

The loud slap was unmistakable. The hitching breaths and the litanies of sorries and don't worry about its and are you okays and i'm okays and I don't mean its and the I should't have said its crashed against the walls and pushed against the open door into her ears. The cycle of sorries from two people more sorry than the next were a jumbled mess of voices.

"Sometimes I just want to say it out loud just once. Not saying it doesn't make it less true, you know."

"Saying it doesn't make it less false either. Don't jinx yourself is what I'm saying. I know I told you I have faith for the both of us," Changmin-nim's sigh was loud in her ears even though it felt soft to her heart. Maybe she shouldn't be listening. But she'd heard everything else. "But sometimes, you make it so hard for me to do it. I'm not anymore used to this role than you. I'm desperate, too."

They were panting, heaving, as though they had been punished by a few rounds of Balanchine. 

"I'm really sorry. We'll be okay, Changdolah," was the drawl. Like molasses, too sweet too slow too painful. Like when you wish to appease a child, tell them the tooth fairy was real, that stars granted wishes. 

"I know," was what came after a stretch of the longest silence. "I'm sorry I hit you."

"It's okay, I probably deserved it." The end of the sentence trailed, stretched and long like the tail of a lemur around a lone desert tree in the middle of a storm. 

"Never," came the reply, bitingly vehement, armed with conviction. "Never you."

* * *

"Well, look who's here."

She didn't jump or startle, merely turned around. It was a miracle her face was dry and her throat wasn't so scratchy. Heechul-nim loomed like a benign shadow above her, beladen with brown paper bags from a restaurant she knew very well even if she couldn't afford it. She saw its receipts cross her desk a million times. BoA-nim's favorite restaurant, but only when Yunho-nim was around.

"Heechul-nim, I..."

"I'm guessing the two blockheads are in there, then?"

"Stop harassing my favorite accountant, hyung."

Kyuhyun-nim and herself bonded over chess and maths, a long time ago when the younger one was still in the middle of preparing for his own solo touring along with the rest of the senior dancers while their principal, Leeteuk-nim went into the army.

"You heard something you're not supposed to hear, then?" Kyuhyun-nim asked kindly.

It wasn't a stretch to know that this group of people knew better than her about whatever it was she had eavesdropped.

"Listen..." he started, darting worried eyes toward the group waiting behind him, who clearly looked like they were waiting for him to sort this mess out--to sort her out. He pushed against his non-existent bangs. His hair was still short, since he had just returned from his own service not too long ago. She thought he looked nicer this way. More boyish. A few days ago, when he passed through accounting to sort out some paperwork, he took the time to whine how Changmin-nim said he looked like an old man with this haircut.

"I'm not supposed to tell, I know," she preempted.

"No. You're not supposed to _know,_ let alone tell. Most importantly, whatever you heard, nothing bad will come out of it. I can promise you that. People who worry conjures up the worst case scenario in their heads."

"To lower their expectations. To avoid getting hurt."

"But by doing so, they're already hurting themselves needlessly," BoA spoke up, before turning to a tall woman in a well-cut suit with a Media guest tag around her neck. "Kija-nim, this too, is off the records." The woman nodded quickly.

"Are you here to dance?" Kyuhyun-nim asked. Because for some reason Kyuhyun-nim found out her guilty secret of stealing illicit dance practices like she still belonged to the corps. When did he learn about it, she wondered? Must be during one of their tax nights, when he would show up half drunk after a round of pub crawling with Changmin-nim and Minho-nim, and helped her with her spreadsheets because it was fun to do only half-sober, while his two friends sleep off the alcohol on Accounting's very ratty probably lice-infested sofas.

"I was. But I guess I lost my appetite for it," she grimaced.

"Hyuk-hyung is going over to the trainees to whip them up. Those kids aren't going to sleep so might as well run them through a routine. You want to go with him? Flex your seniority over the kids a little?"

She had been in accounting for so long she often wondered whether they still remembered she never formally resigned as a dancer.

"Sure, if that's okay with Hyuk-nim." It was embarrassing how quickly she agreed. But they didn't seem to mind. 

"Maybe we can get you back on stage this way," BoA told her kindly. "I need a lot of people for my comeback you know."

Everyone knew those were kind but empty words. Healing words, but BoA's standards were so high that she had crossed off even some of the company's soloists off her list. She was grateful for those words nonetheless. Maybe BoA-nim still needed her in a way. Comebacks meant a lot of expenses, right? 

Hyuk-nim was already walking toward one of the trainee holding rooms. Followed by the rest of Taeyeon-nim's dancers, sans their leader. It was Amber-nim who took her hand. "Come on. The oldies are going into a boring meeting now, we might as well have our own fun."

Maybe they were just buttering her up so she wouldn't spill Yunho's and Changmin's secret. So they could keep an eye on her. Maybe she'd disappear and get buried under a tree. Or maybe, just as Kyuhyun-nim said people who worry comes up with worst-case scenarios rather quickly. 

* * *

She could hear the hinge creak as the door opened under Heechul-nim's enthusiastic hand. "Yunho-yah! Look what we've got! Changmin-ah! Look what your favorite sommelier gave us."

"Gave you? Gave me, you mean?" 

"Oh! I'm starving!" 

"You better be, Yurrobbong! Because you're going to have to finish them all!"

The door closed. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ueno Fountain Square performance is inspired by [Newcomer H Sokerissa/Yuki Aoki project](https://uenoyes.ueno-bunka.jp/en/events/plaza-u/) where they had 10 weeks of public practice at the park and then a full dance performance over the weekend in September 2018.
> 
> [Sokerissa](https://sokerissa.net/en/node/262) is a dance troupe comprised of former or currently homeless persons of all ages who find a new lease of life dancing and body performing on the stage that is the streets of Tokyo. Please continue to support them!


End file.
